As Long As You're Mine
by Ally147
Summary: "I am one lion in a den full of snakes, Malfoy," she hissed, "with potentially all of them on my doorstep if my trust in one of them turns out to be the most ill-advised decision I've ever made – which, in all fairness, it might very well be." D/Hr, War-era AU, EWE. Written for Round 5 of the Dramione Remix on LJ
1. Chapter 1

This story was written for Round 5 of the Dramione Remix over on LJ. My original couple was Elphaba/Fiyero from the novel (not the musical!) version of 'Wicked' by Gregory Maguire. The title, however, was taken from the musical, and was the name of the romantic duet Elphaba and Fiyero sang in the second act. The story is complete, four chapters long, and will be posted as I complete minor edits.

A big thank you firstly to mccargi over on H&V who helped me narrow down just where in Wiltshire Draco might have been from, and to the wonderful kanames_harisen who beta'd for me again.

**WARNINGS: **(In no particular order) profanity, torture (implied, on-screen and discussion of), implicit sex, discussion of religion, violence.

**DISCLAIMER: **In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to JK Rowling, Warner Bros, Bloomsbury Publishing, et cetera, this work is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work.

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><p><em><strong>Salisbury; January 13, 1998<strong>_

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><p>Wiltshire in winter was a depressing sight to behold; cold, wet, dreary and grey, as though all the colours of the landscape had been completely washed out by the rains.<p>

Draco Malfoy welcomed the rain. He would stand out under the showers and smile as it washed the evidence of his sins from his skin, and he felt with grim, roundabout satisfaction that he added some colour back to the world with the trails of red-tinted water that slid down his arms, legs and puddled at his feet.

He was tired. Tired of the unending death and the perverted glee of the sick fucks that reveled in it, tired of having a madman swan about in his home as though he owned it, tired of walking on eggshells whenever he so much as went to take a piss in case that happened to be treasonous, too. The sound of Nagini's scales sliding along the carpeted hallways was enough now to send him into cold, sweating shakes, and the sight and stench of Fenrir Greyback, of sweat and dirt, of blood and exposed flesh, fuelled his nightmares to the point that peaceful sleep was little more than a distant memory.

He could hear the screams of the prisoners in the dungeons when he closed his eyes at night, too. Screams of pain, of terror, pleas for mercy and compassion, but the loudest of all was the mere echo of Granger on the drawing room floor some week and a half ago. With most of the other prisoners, Draco had the benefit of distance, both personal and physical, but not with her. He could still hear too the echo of his aunt screeching at him to take note of what she was doing to the Mudblood's arm, to watch closely and carefully, because he would be carving up the other one when she was done, as was his reward.

Draco shoved his hands in his pockets and kept his head down as he ducked and weaved through the sparse crowds that decorated High Street. Each occasion he'd had to visit the nearby city of Salisbury as of late, the population seemed to have halved, then halved again. He supposed even the Muggles felt the ominous chill and the sense of foreboding the Dark Lord trailed in his wake. Draco wished he had been half as smart as the Muggles and left when he'd had the chance, too.

For how long or how far he walked he was not sure; he had barely looked where he was going, keeping his eyes on the road as he turned left down the Walk and continued on. A cry of a bird in the distance caught his attention, and he turned towards the sound, finding himself facing the tall, stone façade of the imposing Muggle cathedral to his right.

Draco had never before given much thought to Muggle religion, or their houses of worship. The extent of his religious experiences stemmed both from his mother taking him along occasionally to services at the church of The Order of Merlin when he was a boy, and his father's reverent, solemn retellings of the Dark Lord's glory days, only slightly edited for the younger audience. Perhaps it was simply his desire for a respite from the rain, or perhaps it was a deeply buried need for spiritual intervention or redemption or something else, but Draco found himself inexplicably pulled towards the cathedral, and began a long, slow march towards it.

The air was thick with history and reverence as he stepped inside, and scented strongly with incense and just-snuffed Muggle matchsticks. The door echoed loudly as it swung back on its hinges, and his footsteps reverberated in the cavernous space.

He stopped in the middle of the aisle and gazed down the immense length towards the altar. Structurally speaking, for that was the extent of his appreciation, the building was awe-inspiring; high, vaulted ceilings, tall marble pillars supporting pointed arches on each side of the nave. The stain-glass windows behind the altar were the tallest he had ever seen.

Draco took slow steps down the aisle and was almost knocked over by a soaking wet woman rushing up from behind him. Her eyes were cast down, and she barreled headlong into his back, knocking him off balance.

"Watch it," he snapped at the woman as he made a big show of dusting off his damp coat. The woman opened her mouth – to retort, he assumed, but he would welcome it, pulled taut and wired from stress as he was – but she froze suddenly and immediately cast her gaze downwards.

"Sorry," she muttered. Without looking back, she adjusted her darkened red shawl over her long, curled, soaked head of hair and continued on, leaving a trail of drips in her wake.

Draco tensed; he knew that voice…

Shaking his head, he continued down the aisle, deftly avoiding the small puddle. There were few people to hinder his path, bar the oddly familiar woman, so he took brief moments to admire the building, looking up at the majestic stained glass windows, trying to make sense of the stories they told. He read over the names on the plaques that adorned the stone tombs that lined the nave, recognising some from his previous studies of the history of Wiltshire.

He walked further up to where a series of wooden benches were arranged in careful lines leading up to an altar. The odd woman was kneeling at one, her hands braced on the bench in front of her as she muttered to herself. Her hair was still covered by the knitted shawl, pulled close to cover her face. Her head was bowed low, her forehead resting against her clasped hands. She held in her hands a string of blue beads that ended in a cross which she held between her entwined fingers. Something about her, the way she carried herself, it was all painfully familiar.

Draco stood to the side and simply observed, hoping for something that would give the woman away. Her mannerisms weren't unusual or distinctive; a hand reaching up to brush away a stray strand of hair, a roll of her shoulders, a scratch of an itch on her neck. And then, he saw it; she quickly rolled and flicked her wrists, then pulled each individual finger down to the palm by the second knuckle with her thumb until the joints cracked, then she flicked her wrists again. Both gestures he had witnessed many a time before at their shared potions bench and in the library. Habits born, he had observed, from an innate inability to hold a quill correctly. He supposed if anyone would be unable to properly hold a quill, it would be her. He took a tentative step forward and tapped her on her shoulder.

"Granger?"

The hooded figure stiffened and tilted her head slightly to survey him. "Sir, I believe you are mistaking me for someone else," she chastised in a soft, poorly feigned Irish accent that she hadn't used earlier.

"Not bloody likely, Granger. I'd know you anywhere."

She was quiet for a moment, contemplative. "You are interrupting my private meditation, sir," she whispered, clutching her beads so tightly in her fists that her knuckles turned white. "Do I need to call for someone to remove you?"

"Stupidity is not a good look on you, Granger, feigned or not," he muttered as he slipped into the seat behind and leaned forward her so only she could hear him. "We both know it's you, so drop the act."

She shook her head and faced the front, her lips forming words but not sound. Draco waited patiently for her to finish.

"What are you doing here, Granger?"

Her lips curled in a small, annoyed growl. "Why do you keep calling me that?"

"Because apparently you need reminding. So tell me, why are you here?"

"To pray, sir," she replied, her voice strained and her teeth clenched. "Nothing more, so please leave! Again, do I need to call for someone to remove you?"

"Hardly necessary, Granger. Just tell me what it is you are doing still in Wiltshire and I will leave you alone."

There was a long pause, a nearly three minute stretch where neither spoke, and he swore he could hear the cogs in her head turning, weighing up the possibilities. "Twenty minutes, enough to finish my prayers," she finally relented, sounding weary and tired. "Twenty minutes and I will show you that you are making a mistake. Not a large one, but certainly an increasingly annoying one."

"Twenty minutes," he confirmed as he rose, holding his hands behind his back as he turned to leave. "_Granger_."

He supposed it was possible that Granger might have lost herself in her exposure to the _Cruciatus_ curse – it seemed a sick sort of hobby for Bellatrix to torture the strongest she could find into insanity, simply for the satisfaction that she gained in knowing she had completely ruined a brilliant mind under her wand – but it simply didn't seem like her. For what he understood of Granger and her passion and dedication to her causes, capture and torture seemed nothing more than a pesky inconvenience to be brushed off and forgotten as soon as possible, not something she would give in to for anything.

Draco turned from the benches and made his way back up the aisle, past the stained glass windows and the stone tombs. Walking past a middle-aged Muggle woman lighting a series of candles, he asked, "Pardon me, but are there any other entrances to this church besides the main one?"

The woman jumped and glanced over, apparently surprised to have been spoken to. "There's the North Porch," she told him, her voice dry and gravelly, as she extended a hand to point towards a nondescript wooden door to his left. "There's another exit out there. May I ask why you wish to know?"

"Simply curious," he replied. He shot her his most charming smile, and felt gratified to see the older woman blush. "Thank you for your assistance."

The woman murmured something unintelligible in response and turned back to her candles.

He knew Granger wasn't going to wait the twenty minutes. He also knew she wasn't going to use the main entrance either; she would expect him to be waiting for her. No, Granger would make her escape as soon as she could, and she was going to do all she could to throw him off in the process.

Draco inched the door to the North Porch open and found himself facing a rolling expanse of green grass and the nearby museum, blurred only slightly by the grey sky and rain. He glanced quickly behind him and squinted up the nave towards the altar at the far end, still spying Granger folded in on herself in her seat. Grinning to himself, Draco slowly closed the door, careful not to make a sound, and moved to settle himself in the downpour behind the outer wall of the grand archway, quickly soaking through his clothes to his skin.

The door opened not long after, and he peered behind the wall to see the familiar red shawl barely covering her unruly mop of hair. She was surveying her surroundings carefully, no doubt looking for him, before taking off at speed. He chuckled at her predictability; Granger hadn't even waited five minutes before trying to leave!

Draco waited thirty seconds before trailing after her. She was difficult to see in the heavy showers, but not impossible to track, not with the shawl acting as a brightly coloured beacon. She moved between hedges that lined the roads, ducked off down small alleys, crossed into the sparse crowds and moved freely within the throngs until she reached the bank of the River Avon and began to follow the length of it downstream.

He followed her along the river for close to half an hour before she slowed to a pause and began to veer off the bank towards a bare paddock with a lone barn at the centre. She came to a stop in front of the old barn, probably long abandoned judging by the rotting walls and rusted roof and hinges. He watched for a moment as she fumbled with a lock. Odd, he thought to himself. Why she wasn't casting an _Alohomora_?

He rumbled in his throat to lower his register and called out loudly and roughly, "Hermione!"

She turned to face him before she could stop herself. Her features schooled to one of extreme annoyance and she slammed a hand into the door-frame, shaking her head. Turning just slightly to shoot him a scornful look, she beckoned with her hand for him to follow her into the barn.

As he walked in, the door was slammed shut and he was pushed up against the wall with her hands braced against his shoulders.

"Why are you following me, Malfoy?" she hissed before he could begin. "Are you here to take me back? I swear, I'll fight you!"

Draco took hold of her wrists and forcefully guided them back to her sides.

"I'm not going to take you anywhere, Granger," he snapped. "For Merlin's sake, calm down."

"Why are you following me, Malfoy?" she repeated, her teeth grinding so forcefully that he could hear the scrape of bone on bone. "How did you find me?"

"My own pitiful fucking luck, that's how I found you," he spat with a sneer. "I wasn't out looking for you, nor do I plan on taking you back. I was just…" He paused and let out a deep sigh. "I was curious."

"Curious?" she asked, a brow raised. "Of what, exactly?"

"Of what, exactly?" he parroted, incredulous. "_Fuck me__,_ Granger, you were brought to my house and tortured to within an inch of your life not even a bloody week ago! Potter and his merry band of pains in my arse managed to flee, and as far as I knew, you were with them! And now you're here and…" He stopped with a worrying thought, doubt and suspicion taking root in his mind. "Are you spying on us, Granger?"

"Sure," she retorted in a sarcastic deadpan, leaning one shoulder against the wall. "I'm spying on the lot of you. That's why I'm living here, having to steal, with no buggering heat or magic and no conceivable way of passing along the information I find. I hide out in Muggle churches on the off chance you Death Eaters have a change of heart and come in to pray for redemption, that way I can ambush you when you're at your absolute lowest." She shoved a hand against his chest. "How dense are you, Malfoy? Really?"

He furrowed his brows and pursed his lips in annoyance. "Fine. So you're not a spy."

Hermione huffed to herself and pushed away from the wall, taking with her on her sleeve a light dusting of rust. "No. I'm not a damn spy."

"Why are you here, then?"

She ignored him in favour of kicking off her shoes – huh, Granger had weirdly tiny feet – and took a towel from a hook on the wall to her left and began wringing the water out of her hair with it. She wrapped it tight around her hair in an intricate looking knot and shuffled towards a water filled plastic basin sitting upon a small, three-legged stool in the far corner.

"Pitiful fucking luck, I believe is what you called it," she spoke after a long moment, sounding sad and bitter. "Do you want something to eat?"

"Where did you get the food?" he questioned with caution as he took slow, tentative steps further into the barn. It was cold inside, his breath forming perfect puffs of steam as he spoke, and his voice and footsteps resounded off the walls.

"Where the bloody hell do you think I got it, you prat?" she snapped as she untied a small, beaded bag from a cord around her waist. She shoved her arm up to her elbow into the bag and began producing an array of fruits and vegetables which she tossed into the basin, then a flat board and a knife which she balanced on the stool. "I stole it all. I had to. There was nothing left."

"Well, yes. But –"

"But what?" she spat, stabbing the knife soundly into the board so it stood unassisted. She turned and rounded on him, the air around them crackling with unfocused magic. "But Hermione _Mudblood_ Granger would never steal? Would never break the rules –"

Draco closed his eyes against the slur and shuddered. "Please, don't call yourself that," he whispered, so lowly he assumed she hadn't heard.

Hermione froze at his whispered words, fixing him with a glare packed with such hatred that he flinched. "You, of all the people in the world, _do not_ get to say that to me, not ever," she seethed. "You, who tossed that insult around so bloody carelessly _not even a year ago_, do not get to tell me when and where I can say it!"

"I've seen your blood, Granger. It's no more muddy than mine. I was wrong to ever say it."

"So pleased it took seeing me bleeding under your bitch aunt's wand for you to realise that." She pulled the knife from the block of wood and attacked the fruit with violent, furious sweeps of her blade.

"Did you still want something to eat? Or is the prospect of consuming stolen food too much for your incredibly delicate and morally sound sensibilities?"

Draco glared at her, but nodded his assent. While she was busy, he occupied himself by glancing around the room; dry, concrete floors, rusted tin walls, two sleeping bags zipped together and rolled out on a damp pile of rotting straw in the corner. A small jar holding an iridescent blue flame flickered, and a grey slice of light cut through the barn from a high window, a heavy streak of dust dancing through it.

She pushed a plate of orange and apple slices towards him, a little too forcefully, and turned back to her board.

"Are you going to tell me how you ended up here?" Draco questioned after a tentative bite of the apple. "Or should I assume the worst?"

"We have already concluded that I am not a spy," Hermione replied without turning. "What more could you think about a person you so rudely accosted in a church while in the middle of her prayers?"

"I could assume that you've been abandoned," he taunted, peeling the rind away from the orange slice. "That your precious Order has left you to fend for yourself. Or I could assume that you've broken away from the war, either out of a sense of neutrality or your own cowardice that has you fleeing the scene with your tail between your legs."

"Like you?" she challenged with a quirk of her brow.

"My motivations are something you aren't likely to be privy to, Granger."

She let out a quick, forced laugh. "And you expect me to tell you mine?"

Draco leaned back against the wall, crossing one leg over the other. "I already know you wouldn't have fled, Granger. You're far too Gryffindor to even contemplate it, not to mention the fact that you do nothing by halves – if you were to flee, you'd go far. I also doubt the Order would have simply left you on your own, since you seem to be the poster girl for the organisation, but then again, here you are. And if you truly aren't a spy – though saying you aren't a spy would be the perfect way to throw me off the trail, wouldn't it? – I have to deduce that perhaps you aren't here by choice."

She stared at him, and he at her, both silently daring each other to crack first. She pursed her lips and he quirked a brow. He crossed his arms and she began to tap her foot. The sound of her tapping annoyed him immensely; it was out of rhythm, had no coherent beat, unpredictable and irksome. She then cleared her throat, and Draco looked up from her foot to find her smirking at him. He narrowed his eyes at her. There was another long, defiant pause, and then:

Draco slammed his fists against the wall behind him, watching with inward satisfaction as she flinched at the loud, echoing thud and barked, "Talk, Granger!"

She raised an eyebrow at him before she took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Harry, Ron and I were separated after we escaped the Manor," she explained quietly, her eyes down as she focused on her task. "I think something happened to Dobby when he got us out of there, he couldn't keep a hold of me. I was dropped somewhere, not too far from your home I'd wager, and was splinched." She rolled up her sleeve and held her arm out for him to see. He cringed at the sight of her tightly wrapped, bloodied bandage. It was bright red and shining still, as though the bleeding had not yet been stemmed even a week after she had gained the injury. He could see too the outline of another bandage that wound from her elbow to her shoulder; he suppressed the urge to vomit all over again at the thought of what lay under that one.

"My wand is lost," she went on, far too casual for his liking given just how bloody dire her situation was. "I have no dittany left, so I can't heal myself properly. I have no idea where Harry and Ron are. I've moved around the area a bit, but this barn is the best place I've found. It's dry, and good shelter against the wind and rain, even if it is a bit chilly." She sighed and cast a forlorn glance around the room. "And now that you've found me, I'll have to move again."

"I'm not going to tell them where you are," Draco told her, and she let out a loud scoff of disbelief. "And I'm not going to take you back with me. Believe what you like, but I'm not exactly keen to get you back into my home."

"And why should I trust you?" she asked, her tone fierce.

"Because, Granger" – he reached into his cloak and pulled out a wand. Not his own, to be sure; the flimsy, unfamiliar length of Cypress barely obeyed him, but she didn't need to know that. Slowly, almost tauntingly, he twirled it between his fingers right in front of her face – "I have a wand. You don't. If I wanted you back in my house, believe me, you'd be there already."

She eyed the wand with an equal measure of caution and longing, and he could almost see the cogs turning at the back of her mind. Smirking, he stowed the wand away.

"That's not your wand."

"And how are you so sure of that?"

"You didn't refer to it as _your_ wand, just _a_ wand. Plus it's far too long to be yours. That one was twelve inches, at least. Your normal wand couldn't be any more than ten inches."

"I'll ignore for the moment the obvious thought you have put into my wand" – he smirked at the blush that rose on her cheeks – "but you would be correct. Since Saint _bloody_ Potter saw fit to abscond with my wand, I've had to make do with this one."

"Harry has your wand?" she questioned with surprise.

"Stole it right out of my hand."

Her lips curled in a small smile. "You'll have to forgive him for that. I think he has a greater need of it than you at the moment."

As if that was any sort of excuse! "What was bloody wrong with his that he has to nick mine?"

"His… snapped. Last Christmas, when we were in Godric's Hollow. My fault, really."

"What on earth were the three of you doing to snap a damn wand?"

"The two of us," she corrected darkly, a flash of anger crossing her features. "And I think it would be best for me not to tell you why it happened."

"I have other ways of finding out, you know."

"Oh, please." She scoffed. "You might be a skilled Occlumens, but we both know your borrowed wand won't hold up long enough to use Legilimency, and I doubt your skill to cast it wandlessly."

"I might just surprise you on that count, Granger," he retorted, holding eye contact as long as he could.

She leaned forward on her makeshift seat, challenging him with her steely gaze as though inviting him in. "Go on, then," she goaded.

He smirked at her resolve and let out a chuckle, dropping his gaze and reclining back against the wall.

"You'll tell me one day," he promised, shooting her a quick wink to which she simply rolled her eyes. "So, why isn't Potter trying to find you, Granger? Why didn't anyone come back once they realised you were gone?"

Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and let out a sigh. "He knows not to. I'm of no importance in this. If it had been Ron who was separated, we wouldn't go after him, either. As insensitive as it may sound, Harry is the priority. Perhaps, when it's safe again, someone will come for me. Until then, I just have to wait, and hope you aren't planning on stabbing me in the back."

Draco rolled his eyes heavenward. "How many times must I say it, Granger? I am not going to tell anyone where you are, I am not going to lead a pack of Death Eaters to your doorstep to kill you as you sleep. I have no desire for… any of this. I give you my word."

"And why wouldn't you?" she challenged. "The reward for you if you did would be spectacular, no doubt. My being Potter's little Mudblood, I'd imagine there's quite a healthy bounty on my head."

"For a myriad of reasons I'm not likely to divulge, Granger. But suffice it to say that I am getting rather tired of watching my former classmates get tortured on my drawing room floor."

"Is that why you didn't identify us when we were brought to your home?"

He shrugged, feigning indifference. "In part. It didn't really help you, though. For that, I apologise."

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't say anything. Instead, she inspected him closely, as though he were a specimen of some kind. She must have been assured by what she had found, however, as she leaned back on her hands and gave a satisfied nod.

"So, Draco Malfoy does have a soul," she commented eventually, as though she had made an outstanding discovery, though there was an underlying hint of a tease in there, too. "Who would have thought?"

"I can't be all evil all the time, Granger. It would become dull after a while."

She gave a tiny smile and huffed a little laugh.

"You know, by staying here, I'm going against every instinct that tells me not to trust you, Malfoy, but if you're really not going to turn me in, you have to swear to me that you won't come back here. Someone might follow you next time, and I'm not willing to take that risk."

"And you'll what?" His disbelieving snort turned into a cynical sneer. "Hole yourself in here until the war is over? That could take months, Granger, maybe even years."

"Have you no faith in Harry at all?" Hermione snapped. "He will win."

"Maybe so, Granger, but when?" She opened her mouth to reply, but no sound came out. He pressed on. "I pray I am wrong, but I don't see this war ending quickly. In that time… Merlin, I don't even want to think about what might happen."

"Harry will win, and soon," she declared. "In the meantime," she went on, sounding nearly disappointed, "I think you should leave. I'm sure someone is bound to notice you're missing. And I doubt that is looked too fondly upon in your home at the moment."

Draco looked up to the high window and out at the darkening sky. His mother would surely be out of her mind with worry, and his father, if he was currently lucid enough to register the time, would almost certainly be in the midst of assembling a search party. "Perhaps," he answered vaguely.

"Perhaps," she repeated wryly. "The little Malfoy prince is missing and someone only _might_ be worried."

He turned to glare at her, finding only a smirk on her lips and a sparkle of amusement in her eyes.

"Perhaps," he enunciated again. "I should go."

"Perhaps," she teased.

"Are you quite done, Granger?" he asked, exasperated.

"Are you really going to begrudge me the first real moment of amusement that I've had in almost a year?"

"I didn't come here for your amusement, you know."

"No, you came here looking for an escape, didn't you?"

He gave pause and looked over at her, seeing Hermione for exactly what she was at that moment; a small, frightened teenaged girl. Painfully thin, dull eyes, matted hair, a body tense and poised to spring from the constant threat of terror, war, death and violence. And yet, there was a certain hardness to her, too – an edge, something that glinted in her eyes and hinted at something more.

And he knew that he was no better. Maybe, he was even worse. His eyes didn't have that edge, there was no courage in him anymore. Draco knew he was the quintessential Slytherin, content to run and hide until the danger had passed.

"Perhaps," he whispered. Slowly, he stood from the little stool and silently walked towards the rusted tin door.

"Malfoy?"

He turned at the doorway and braced a hand on the frame, already half knowing what she was about to ask. "Yes, Granger?"

"I'm sorry for what is happening at your home," she told him, honest and earnest, "and that you feel the way you do; I honestly would not wish that kind of terror on anyone, but you can't come back. For my sake and yours, never come here again."

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><p><strong>AN: <strong>I hope you're enjoying this one so far. The next chapter should be up within a few days. Til' then, leave a review and tell me what you think :)


	2. Chapter 2

Hello again, everyone! I'm glad this story has been so well received. This chapter contains some more discussion of religion, some swearing, and a brief, relatively non-explicit lemon at the end. Enjoy!

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><p><em><strong>January 14, 1998<strong>_

"Have you heard any news of Harry and Ron?" Hermione asked when he came back the following day.

It had taken only a few hours of internal deliberation before Draco decided to return. He still didn't have a definitive reason as to why, especially when he considered just how easily the whole situation could go arse-up at a moment's notice. He supposed the company was nice, as was knowing that there was somewhere else he could go when the idea of an evening at home – and in the presence of a carved-out, shell of a man who was as close to pure evil as it seemed possible to become – was about as welcoming a prospect as hacking off his own bollocks with a rusted table knife.

For all her bluster and bravado, Granger hadn't been as opposed to his presence as she had first appeared. She had fought him hard when she found him banging on the barn door earlier that morning, definitely, but she seemed to rather enjoy having someone to speak to, someone to keep her informed with what was happening while she continued with her self-imposed banishment. Even sitting across from her in silence while they both read books seemed to bring her a quiet sort of contentment.

"There have been talks of sightings, but nothing substantial," he spoke over the top of his book, without bothering to look up. "Something about them breaking into Gringotts, and then escaping on the back of a dragon."

Hermione choked on a breath of air and launched into a series of violent coughs. "They broke into Gringotts?" she spluttered, thumping a fist to her chest. "And escaped on a _dragon_?"

"So the goblins say, but I don't buy it." He ducked back to his book and casually turned the page. "I considered its truth for only a few moments before I decided the feat was well beyond either of the Dunce Duo's capabilities."

"But you can't really accuse the goblins of being sensationalists, can you?" Hermione pressed, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees with her chin cradled in her hands. "Plus, they haven't explicitly taken a side, so you know they aren't claiming anything to curry favour with either side."

"So maybe Potter and Weasley did break into Gringotts, and maybe they did escape on a dragon," Draco exclaimed, tossing his book carelessly to the floor. "If indeed they did – and I sincerely doubt it – then why in Merlin's name would they have done that in the first place?"

"I would deduce that they noticed the same thing I did," she told him primly. "That when your aunt saw the sword in my bag, she seemed absolutely terrified at the prospect that we had been in her vault, which leads one to wonder: just what did she have in her vault that she would be so concerned about?"

Draco shut his mouth and thought back. He hadn't noticed that at all – nothing had really registered in his mind that day. All he remembered were Granger's screams, the sickening slice of steel through skin and the ruby red droplets of her blood that flowed freely from her wounds and sunk into the carpet. He shook his head to clear the vision, if only momentarily.

"Any idea what it might be?"

Hermione shrugged, looking a little helpless. "None at all, but if Harry and Ron broke in, then I can assume they found out what it was on their own. But even if I did know, I couldn't tell you."

Draco cocked his head to the side. "Are you really that afraid that I might tell someone?" he asked, curious. "How many times do I have to tell you –"

"I am deathly afraid that you might tell someone, Malfoy," she cut in, her tone low and serious. "Or, more accurately, I'm afraid you might show someone."

He arched a brow at that. "Need I remind you that I am an accomplished Occlumens?"

"I know you are, and I respect it, but do you really think you would be able to keep _Him_ out?"

There was a heavy pause, and Draco knew he had to concede.

"Well, what of your friends?" she asked, deftly changing the subject. "Are they involved in this at all?"

"Friends right now are few and far between," he told her wryly. "Zabini fled with his mother to Morocco, Nott went on the run to escape his father; I haven't heard from him in over six months, and I still don't know if that's a good or bad thing. Crabbe and Goyle are involved somehow, but they aren't Marked, and Pansy is at Hogwarts still."

"At least you know they're safe," she reassured him. "My friends just broke into a supposedly impenetrable bank and got out on a bloody dragon." She shook her head again and let out an incredulous little snort before taking a sip of water from her plastic bottle.

"Small mercies," he said with a droll smirk. "How on earth did you become friends with those two? They hardly seem –"

"My type?" she finished for him, a small, fond smile pulling at her lips. "I had thought that too when I first met them. Ron was horribly rude to me in the beginning, a condition he wasn't cured of in a hurry, either. Harry was always sweet, though. I feel like if he and I had first met under different circumstances – if I had not been hunting for a toad and such a pretentious little snob of a girl and he not already sitting with Ron – we might have become friends faster."

Draco let out a laugh at the memory of a small, fluffy-haired girl confidently pulling open the door to his compartment and enquiring quite loudly about a toad, of all things. "I remember you coming through, looking for that toad."

"Do you remember, by any chance, what you said to me when I opened your carriage?"

"Probably something rude about Mudbloods and appropriately moronic familiars. I don't remember the exact words."

She shook her head and gave him a small smile. "On the contrary, Draco. You were, by your low standards, quite nice."

He sat back, surprised. "I was?"

"Oh, yes." She took a bite of apple, chewed it slowly and swallowed before licking the residual juice from her lips. "You were quite helpful, even. You had impeccable pureblood manners. Remember though, you had no idea who or what I was then. If I'm being completely honest, I might have had the tiniest crush on you after that."

His grin was shark-like, he was sure. "Really?"

"Really." She nodded, a tiny blush colouring her cheeks. "However," she went on, concentrating her gaze on the ceiling, "not long after we arrived at Hogwarts, you voiced your true opinions. Loudly, too, I might add. Anything I might have felt for you then disappeared in an instant. Granted, though, being eleven at the time, it wasn't much, and certainly nothing more than a stupid, childish infatuation."

She shrugged then and stood up, shuffling over to the corner and to her small plastic basin. He wasn't sure how to respond to her last comment. He wasn't sure why he was so disappointed to hear it, either.

**XXX**

_**January 17, 1998**_

It was a fittingly dark afternoon filled with black clouds, a raging thunderstorm, creaking rooftops and squalling winds when Hermione unapologetically asked him, "Did you take the Dark Mark, Malfoy?"

He didn't flinch as set down his book and rolled up his left sleeve, baring to her curious eyes the sickening, writhing brand on his arm. "I did," he stated.

Hermione reached out a hand, but stopped just short of touching the Mark. Instead, she hovered her fingers above it, moving slowly back and forth. He watched as her face contorted, her lips twisting and her brows furrowing above squinted eyes and a scrunched-up nose. She had fascinatingly expressive features, he noted.

"I think I can feel it," she said, sounding both disgusted and awed. "It's pulsing." She looked up at him, tilting her head to one side. "Can you feel that?"

He nodded, his gaze falling back to the Mark. "Every minute of every day."

"Does it hurt?" she asked, carefully prodding the pale, unmarred skin around the Mark.

"It did," he admitted, watching goose-bumps rise over his forearm from her feather-light touch. "But it doesn't so much now. There is an awareness of it though, if that makes sense. When He wants to summon us, He uses the Mark." He closed his eyes and let out a breath. "The pain then is beyond anything I've felt, and localised entirely in the Mark. It's enough to make a person consider amputation."

He didn't know where his forthrightness had come from. With Granger, words simply flowed, as though a switch had been flicked deep inside. Perhaps it was the fact that he had barely spoken unless spoken to in the past year, and the novelty of having Granger, bleeding heart sympathiser that she was, to vent his frustrations on took the burden of his thoughts completely off his shoulders.

He only wished she wasn't so forgiving when he hadn't done shit all to earn it.

"Why did you take it?" she asked, the very tip of her finger tracing the Mark.

Draco took hold of her wrist and gently pulled her hand away before shrugging. "Familial duty? Pressure? Because, at the time, I had wanted to? To make my father proud? A childish sense of naiveté over what taking the Mark actually meant? All of those reasons would be correct."

Her eyes shot up to his. "At the time?" she pressed, sounding nearly urgent. "So you don't want it now?"

Draco felt his eyes becoming distant and glassy, focusing on some nameless object out in the distance. "I want nothing anymore of what having this Mark means, Granger. I have seen things that would sicken you. Muggle women, and even men sometimes, and brought in, beaten, raped, tortured and murdered, and not always in that order. Torture is routine, and very rarely does it stop at the _Cruciatus_ curse. The Muggle-borns are marked as you were, and if Dobby hadn't appeared when he did when you were there that night, I would have had to carve up your other arm when Bellatrix was done."

"Did you mark others in such a way?" she asked softly. She sounded as though she was afraid of the answer, but she maintained eye contact, as though she needed to know.

"No," he answered truthfully. He gave a derisive little laugh, completely devoid of humour. "I used to speak of you, when I was younger. Of the Mudblood girl who would best me in class, who would humiliate me, who was far better than she ever deserved to be. To cut your arm… in Bellatrix's mind, it would have been my retribution. As such, I was only ever offered you."

Hermione looked down at the floor and shook her head, her gaze hollow and shocked at his words. "I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything." He stood from his seat and took his coat from the hook by the door. "I'm sorry, Granger, really. For all of it."

And he really was. The idea of Granger thinking him a monster like his aunt, or that he was unaffected by what was going on around them… it was more than he could bear. Something deep within him twisted painfully at the thought that she would still think so lowly of him, especially after she had proven herself to be, in his eyes, one of the bravest women he had ever had the privilege of knowing. He wanted to be better… not just for himself, but for her, too. Something in him wanted desperately to be worthy of her smile.

But that was a dream for another time. Another life, even. Some other time where perhaps he wasn't the dutiful Death Eater, and she not fighting against everything he stood for.

She didn't say anything, keeping her eyes trained on the floor. Draco sighed, sweeping his coat around his shoulders and fixing the buttons that ran the length of it.

"I'll come back in a few days, Hermione."

He only just caught her whisper over the howling winds as he closed the door behind him, "Bye, Draco."

**XXX**

_**January 21, 1998**_

Huddled deep in her sleeping bag like a makeshift cocoon, Hermione spoke suddenly, "During our second year, Harry thought you were the Heir of Slytherin."

Draco smirked to himself and let out a little laugh. "Unsurprising," he said as he set down his copy of _The Evening Prophet._ "I rather wanted people to think I was the heir, though I never actually said as much. There's a certain… confidence that comes with knowing others fear you, even if it was only a subtle intimation that they feared."

"He questioned you in the Slytherin common room one night," she went on, tearing distractedly at the paper label that covered her water bottle. "As did Ron."

He sat up a little straighter and fixed her with a glare. "Explain," he demanded.

"Polyjuice Potion." She shrugged nonchalantly, tearing the paper off in long strips. "I stole the ingredients and brewed it, and Harry and Ron used it to disguise themselves as Crabbe and Goyle. They waited for you outside your common room for you to let them in."

He thought he should be angry, but he couldn't find it within himself. Instead, he thought back to the night, remembering the odd inconsistencies he had noticed but later dismissed as simply being odd quirks.

"They spoke more in that one hour than Crabbe and Goyle usually did in the space of a month," he recalled. "I thought something was off that night, but I thought perhaps it had been a prank of some sort. I suppose your boys would have been quite disappointed when they were done with me." He threw her a sly, sidelong glance. "But where they are, you follow soon after; where were you, Granger? Or, rather, _who_ were you?"

She flushed a bright pink and looked down at the floor, wringing her hands nervously in her lap.

"Oh, this must be good." He leaned forward expectantly, grinning as he waited for her to go on.

"I wasn't there," she squeaked.

Draco scoffed. "Clearly not for lack of trying. Come on, Granger, who was it? Pansy? Millicent? Was it even a girl? Were you Blaise?"

"I wasn't there!" she exclaimed loudly. She cleared her throat, and shook her head. "I wasn't there," she repeated calmly, folding her hands demurely in her lap.

"Fine," he relented, rolling his eyes. "So you weren't in the common room. Where were you, then?"

"Who says I was anywhere?" she contradicted him. "I could have been waiting in the Gryffindor tower for all you know."

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees with his hands clasped loosely in front of him. "Unlikely. You said you brewed it. We both know that Polyjuice requires constant care, and I don't believe you would allow Potter and Weasley to dispense it by themselves. I also don't believe you would let them go in alone but, in hindsight, their questions and behaviour certainly lacked tact and any semblance of normalcy. So, while I can believe that you weren't with them, I also don't believe you were far away, since you would have brewed the potion as close to the Slytherin dorms as you could manage to account for the time it would take for it to wear off. Your absence was clearly one that was unaccounted for."

Her panicked expression fell, and she looked at him with something akin to awe. He preened just a little at her unspoken admiration.

"Where exactly did you hone your skills in deductive reasoning?"

"I live with a maniac and quite a few of his most dedicated, sadistic followers; it does a person well to be able to read a situation." He leaned back in his seat, crossing one leg over the other. "So, Granger. Tell me. Where were you?"

She took a deep breath and glanced fretfully around the barn, as though she believed she was being listened to. "There was a… problem with my transformation," she told him in a hushed whisper.

He lifted a brow. "A problem?"

"Do you recall, perhaps, not long before I was petrified, I spent ten days in the Hospital Wing?"

He wracked his brain for the memory and felt the tips of his ears blush; he had been an utter shit when Granger hadn't appeared in class, telling anyone who would listen that the Heir of Slytherin had finally caught up with the jumped-up Mudblood. "I… yes, I do."

She shook her head and waved a hand, as though she could tell exactly what he was thinking. "It doesn't matter anymore. But you do know that Polyjuice isn't intended to be used for animal transformations?"

Draco snorted in amusement. "Of course I do. That's what we have Animagus –" His mind screeched to a sudden halt, his eyes widening with understanding and disbelief. "Are you telling me what I think you are, Granger?"

Her skin flushed a brilliant shade of red, and she stared at the floor, nodding slowly. "I'd plucked cat hair from Millicent Bulstrode instead."

His jaw dropped. "You turned into a cat?"

"Not quite. More like a strange…" She paused, her flush deepening even further, and she finished in a low, nearly inaudible whisper, "Cat-girl hybrid."

Draco burst out in a deep, full-bodied laugh. His jaw and stomach hurt, and tears of mirth gathered in his eyes.

Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. "It's not funny!" she protested.

"You're right." He gasped. "It's fucking hilarious is what it is."

There was a tiny quirk at the corner of her lips and, seemingly entirely against her will, a little bubble of laughter fell forth.

"No, it's not," she protested, her tiny smile betraying her.

"It is, and you know it." He pointed at her and grinned in triumph. "See? You think so, too! Cat-girl Granger!"

Her eyes narrowed playfully. "Call me that again and you'll wish He got a hold of you instead."

"Fine, fine." He took a deep, calming breath as a few final chuckles escaped him. "Merlin, Granger. Ten days in the hospital wing as a cat? Did Pomfrey blow her top? You must have had to tell her what happened."

Hermione shook her head and wrung her hands in her lap. "Never in as many words. I only said it was a potions mishap. I assume she would have filled in the gaps, but she never said anything, and I was never reprimanded. But this is all beside the point; I wanted to ask you something about that night, about something you said to Harry and Ron."

"Ask away."

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her cupped hands and stated quite plainly, "You wished me dead that night."

He sobered completely then, and held her stare her for as long as he could before he let out a sigh, letting his gaze fall ashamedly to the floor. "I did. It's not something I'm particularly proud of, Granger. I didn't mean it then, and I certainly don't wish it now."

"Then why say it at all?"

"Slytherin house is all politicking. You say the right things, you move higher up; the wrong things… you're nothing. Lower than nothing."

"Amongst children?" she questioned, unconvinced. "Really?"

"Where better to start? The slightest hint of weakness sets you so far back that you can barely claw yourself back up again. I didn't want that. Not again. So I said some things that I knew would go over well, even if I wasn't sure that I really agreed with them myself, and I hauled my way back to the top."

Hermione stared at him for a long moment, then let out a sigh, slouching even further forward with her shoulders to nearly fold herself in half and wrap her arms under her knees. It looked an uncomfortable position, but he hardly felt he could argue.

"It would be so easy for me to think you a coward, Malfoy," she whispered eventually, sounding weary and tired.

"I wouldn't disagree with you for a second, Granger."

**XXX**

_**January 26, 1998**_

"Do you know anything of wandless magic?" Hermione asked from her little stool on the opposite side of the barn.

Draco nearly winced at the question. "Enough to know that I haven't the patience to attempt it again. I tried learning after this wand backfired on me." He neglected to mention that the backfire had occurred after being forced to turn his wand on a former classmate, and he had paid dearly for the foul. She didn't need to know that. "It is supremely difficult to learn, and near on impossible to master unless your drive and focus to do so is absolute."

"For you, perhaps," she teased him over her shoulder. "Do you have any books at the Manor on the subject?"

"Wandless magic is all practical, Granger. It isn't really something you can learn from a book."

"But there are books?" Hermione pressed.

He rolled his eyes and fought the little tug that pulled at his lips. "Yes, Granger. There are books."

Hermione shot up from her seat and was across the room and only scant inches in front of him within a second. "Can you bring them for me?" she asked urgently, bracing her hands on his bent knees.

"Perhaps," he ventured, smirking. "What's in it for me?"

"All the sliced apple you can handle."

"Merlin, woman. Aren't you tired of apples? They're all you ever have."

"Of course I'm tired of them!" she exclaimed emphatically as she fell gracelessly to the floor beside him. "But they're the least conspicuous thing to take. The store I go to has great containers of them right out the front, with no one watching them. But, if I was proficient enough in wandless magic, I might be able to take something else."

Draco snorted in amusement. "That's why you want to use wandless magic? So you can filch pears instead?"

Hermione huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "If I could use wandless magic, then I might be able to conjure a Patronus to tell Harry that I'm alive, maybe find some help. Or, at the very least, confound a shop keep. I'm starting to run out of…" She fidgeted uncomfortably, "…essentials."

"What am I, a bag of wet rocks?" He nudged her with his elbow. "I'm helping you plenty, Granger! I bring you books! As if you could survive without books!"

She rolled her eyes and swatted him on the arm. "And while that is lovely for the moment, Malfoy, and I thank you for it, none of it is particularly conducive to getting me back where I belong."

Draco set his book down and hesitated before asking, "Do you really want to go back, Granger?"

She shot him an unimpressed glare. "That is an incredibly stupid question, Malfoy." She shook her head, as though deeply disappointed in him, and moved to stand.

He snatched a hand out to grasp her wrist and tumbled her into his lap. Neither made to move, and Draco made no effort to loosen his grip. He pulled her even closer, so their noses were barely an inch from pressing together.

"Is it?" he countered, his mouth set in a thin line. Her warm breath puffed against his cheek in angry little bursts, ruffling the feathered strands of his fringe, but he wasn't about to allow himself to become distracted by her proximity, no matter how intimate their stance would look from the outside, and no matter how much he was starting to want to.

He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment where he began to feel _more_ for Granger. All he knew was that it was starting to consume him, to the point where he could think of little else but _her_. How she might feel in is arms (_fucking perfect, _he thought to himself), how she might taste, and what it might be like if things between them were… _different_. Not that any of it really mattered; Granger would never lower herself to the likes of him and she… she wasn't in his future anyway.

After this, if he lived, he would marry a woman of pure blood and good breeding, and Granger would marry her Weasel, as it was all meant to play out, and that would be that.

"Considering everything there is against you – the Muggle-born Registry and the fact that the Dark Lord wants to make a very public statement out of you among other things," he went on, exasperated, "I would have thought that the _real_ stupid consideration in this is that you would actually want to go back. At the very least, you're safe here."

"I am one lion in a den full of snakes, Malfoy," she hissed, "with potentially all of them on my doorstep if my trust in one of them turns out to be the most ill-advised decision I've ever made – which, in all fairness, it might very well be. My safety is no more in question here than it would be anywhere else. Besides, my place is with Harry."

"Potter isn't even trying to help you!" he yelled, his voice echoing in the empty space.

"I told you this already, Malfoy!" she snapped, pulling her hand out from his hold. "Harry can't come looking for me! If he puts himself in danger and is hurt or worse, this entire effort could go up in smoke!"

"You would sacrifice yourself for him?" he asked, softening. "Really, Granger?"

She glanced around her frigid barn and gave him a small smile, one that was sad and just a little bit pained, and whispered, "I already have, haven't I?"

**XXX**

_**January 29, 1998**_

"Are you religious, Granger?"

He felt her twitch against his side as she looked up from where she had been staring at her jarred, blue flame and glanced over at him, her pale skin bathed in an eerie glow.

"I'm not entirely sure. Why do you ask?"

He shrugged, his shoulders brushing against hers. "I found you in a cathedral. You said you were praying. I'm curious."

"I was religious, I suppose," she spoke after a long moment. "After starting at Hogwarts, though, I stopped going to church, not to mention I was never particularly enamoured with the way Muggle religious communities treated witches, whether they were truly magical or not. When you found me in the cathedral… that was the first time I had prayed since I was a child." She turned to look at him, her expression completely open and yet wholly unreadable at the same time. "What about you?"

"My mother and I used to attend services at the Church of the Order of Merlin when I was a child. Occasionally Father would join us; I believe Mother was most concerned with the state of our immortal souls at that time. I haven't been to one since Hogwarts began, but honestly?" He shrugged. "I don't miss it. I can't say it brought me much comfort then, I was hardly old enough to understand what was happening, but it brings me even less now."

"Because of the war?"

"Not just the war. There just isn't enough around me to convince me that it's all real."

"That's what religion is, Malfoy; taking a leap of faith, believing the unbelievable."

"Perhaps I don't want to take leaps of faith anymore. Perhaps I want a firm surface to land on, with certainties and stabilities. None of this worrying of where I'm going to trip and fall."

"None of us are going to have anything remotely stable to land on for some time, Malfoy. How are you getting through this now if not by faith?"

"Honestly, Granger?" He reached between their bodies and grasped her hand, twining their fingers together, and whispered, "I think it might be you."

**XXX**

_**February 5, 1998**_

February rains came with bitterly cold winds that eventually turned to hail and snow. Draco had never been more grateful for the warming charm that was woven into each individual thread of his coat.

"You d-didn't have to come t-today, Malfoy," Hermione told him from her sleeping bag as he let himself in and closed the door. Her teeth chattered as she dug through her beaded bag and pulled out a scarf. She wrapped it around her neck and immediately delved her hands back under her covers and pulled them tight around her chin. "It's c-cold."

"I wouldn't have been any warmer at home, Granger, believe me. Besides" – he reached into his thick coat pocket, charmed by his mother with a similar extension charm to Granger's beaded bag, and removed a small white box, also charmed by his mother, this time to spring back to size upon its opening – "I couldn't have you starving and freezing to death out here."

Her eyes lit up, bright against her pale skin. "You b-brought food?"

"I did."

"You m-made it?"

He paused and cringed, realising his mistake. "Not exactly."

Hermione's eyes narrowed dangerously, and all of a sudden it wasn't so cold anymore. In fact, when she leapt from her sleeping bag and came to a stop in front of him – her cheeks flushed, her eyes flashing, her hands firmly planted on her hips and her slender body clad head to toe in striped blue flannelette pajamas at least two sizes too big (probably Potter's, he considered, oddly jealous at the thought) – he felt almost hot. "You had house-elves prepare it, didn't you?"

"The house-elves were eager to please," he defended. "All I had to say was that I was feeling hungry and they were practically throwing themselves at my feet for the opportunity to make something for me."

Hermione's glare was fiercely reprimanding, and he held up a hand to stop the tirade that would surely follow. "No, they aren't free, not with my father in charge, and no, they are not paid. But they are happy to provide the services that they do, Granger. It's what they want to do."

"They are conditioned to accept a life of servitude or risk being beaten or killed for daring to speak up for themselves," Hermione hissed. "There is a difference between wanting to do something and being forced to do it."

"The house-elves aren't in any way forced," he intoned, both calm in the face of her furious defense and incredibly bored of it. "If they truly wanted to leave of their own accord, no one is going to stand in their way. They have served multiple generations of Malfoy, have comfortable quarters where many of them have their own families, and they are genuinely happy for it. I agree, my father is rough and really quite cruel when he wants to be, but I'm not like that, Granger. Most of those elves helped raise me."

Hermione paused in her sparking fury and cocked her head to the side. "Your house-elves have families?"

Draco burst out laughing. "Of course they have families. Where did you think house elves came from? That the house-elf fairy dropped them off on our doorstep?"

A tiny smile pulled at her lips. "Don't be ridiculous, Malfoy. Fairies don't exist."

"You don't believe in fairies either, Granger? I have much to prove to you when this is over."

She blushed brightly and turned away.

"So, do you want the food?"

"It does smell wonderful." She stared longingly at the white box. "What is it?"

"Coq a vin."

She looked up at him, amused. "You asked your house-elves to make coq a vin?"

He raised his narrow shoulders in a shrug as he sat down on the little stool. "As I said, they were happy to help."

Hermione sighed and picked up her beaded bag again. She dug her arm up to nearly her shoulder into it until she let out a triumphant, "Ha!" and pulled her arm back out. She took her hand in his and dropped a small pile of Sickles into his palm.

"I hardly need to be paid, Granger," he told her, an amused smirk on his lips.

She scoffed. "It's for your elves, Malfoy. When you go home tonight, you'll give the money to your elves. With my thanks." She closed his fingers around the coins. "Please, Draco?"

He let out a sigh heavy with feigned exasperation and pocketed the coins. "Perhaps they can be convinced to buy something for themselves for a change."

A loud clap of thunder sounded, bringing along with it lashings of rain that came in at an angle on the wind. Surprising them both, the barn door blew open under the ferocity of the gale, quickly soaking the entrance and muddying the floor. A flash of lightning illuminated the sparse barn for a split second before disappearing.

Draco leapt from his stool and pushed the door back – quite the effort against the wind – and latched the rusty hook in place to lock it. He turned back to find Granger… windswept. Her hair fluffed up and stuck out at odd angles, making her the very image of a lion with a full mane. He let out a chuckle at her state.

"It's rude to laugh, Malfoy," she reprimanded him as she dug out a comb from her bag to run through her hair. "Besides, you're stuck here now; it would be in your best interest not to upset me if you're spending the night."

"I can get home," he retorted confidently just as another thunderclap sounded, rocking the barn to its foundation.

"Of course you can," Hermione replied brightly. "Off you go, then. I'll enjoy the chicken. Thanks ever so."

The steel roof pinged loudly and repeatedly through an onslaught of hail.

She opened the lid on the box and made a big show of taking a deep inhale of the contents. "Mmm, that smells heavenly."

"Give it here, Granger," he grumbled, pulling the box towards him. He took a drumstick and bit into it aggressively.

"Slow down, Malfoy," Hermione tutted. "Honestly, you're as messy as Ron."

He paused mid-chew and slowly swallowed. "Did you compare me to Weasel?"

"Might have done," she said, shooting him a wink.

Merlin's snazzy hat, was Granger _flirting_ with him?

Cabin fever must be making her delirious. Had to be. There was no way.

He grunted in response and didn't speak for the rest of the meal.

"I only have the one bed," Hermione announced through a yawn some time later, when the sky was black, the moon was high and rain pelted unrepentantly against the roof, leaking in spots. They had huddled side-by-side in front of the little jarred flame, basking in what little warmth and light it offered as she taught him how to play Go Fish with a deck of playing cards.

"I can see that," he retorted sarcastically. "Look, Granger. It's bloody cold out, and I'm not going to do anything you wouldn't want me to; would it be so bad if we slept in the same bed - or bag, as it were?"

"I suppose not," she conceded after a long moment with a sigh. "I'm going to get ready for bed. Excuse me for a moment."

She picked up her beaded bag and disappeared to the dark corner of the barn which housed her plastic basin. He listened to the splash of water as he kicked off his shoes, keeping his socks on, and stripped down to his black cotton boxer shorts and undershirt. He slid into the sleeping bag, wriggling uncomfortably atop the straw mattress, and waited for Granger to return.

"Will your parents be worried?" she asked him as reappeared from the shadows and slid in beside him. She had wrangled her hair into a messy braid, and she smelled strongly of both mint and roses.

"Probably. But if they were going to look for me they would have done so by now," he answered, crossing his arms behind his head. "I haven't been summoned by Him, so I assume everything is fine."

"That's good," she murmured. She curled up against his side and let out another yawn. "Good night, Malfoy," she said sleepily.

He felt his lips graze her forehead as he wound an arm around her waist and pulled her warm body close. She would be the death of him before long, he was sure. "Sweet dreams, Granger."

**XXX**

It was still dark – and incredibly warm, too – when Draco woke up to something soft and fluffy tickling his nose. He didn't have to look down to know Granger's hair was about to launch an all-out mutiny against her oppressive hair tie. Instead he brought up a hand – _had he really been groping Granger in his sleep_? – and tried to pat the hair down. He let out a little growl when it immediately sprung back up and tickled his nose. A soft giggle prompted him to open his eyes.

He looked down to find Granger awake already, her body pressed tight against his, her chocolate-brown eyes boring into his grey ones. She slowly ventured a hand forward, brushing the messy strands of his hair from his face before landing softly on his cheek.

"Why do you keep coming back?" she whispered, leaning in closer. He could feel her warm breath fanning out over his cheek, and her eyes, though heavy with sleep, were darkened with curiosity and unmistakable arousal.

"I don't know why, Granger," he murmured, just as lowly, his breathing slowing to match hers. "Why do you keep letting me?"

"I think…" She trailed off, averting her eyes and nibbling her bottom lip. "I think maybe I need you. Need this."

He tilted her chin up with his fingers so he could look her in the eye again. "I think," he whispered, carefully lowering his face to hers until their noses met, "I might just need you, too, Granger."

The world narrowed and fell away completely until it was only the two of them, alone in that dark, cold barn in the middle of the countryside, the single blue flame casting that eerie glow about the room. Unable to hold back any longer – and, in that moment, completely uncaring as to the consequences of what he was about to do – he dropped his lips to hers once, twice, three times, quick, teasing pulls of closed lips until he could take no more.

He brought his hands up to cup her cheeks and traced his tongue lightly over the seam of her mouth, probing and nibbling gently until she opened up to him. The first light touch of her tongue over his was his undoing, and he wrapped one hand immediately around her waist while the other delved into her hair and pulled her flush against him.

The feel and scent of her on, in, around him was heady, intoxicating, utterly addicting and _dear Merlin_, did he want more.

Clothes tumbled to the floor, torn off with haste by trembling hands in between broken whispers and sweet pulls of lips. He broke away to take in the rest of her, to trace his tongue slowly, adoringly, over her breasts, her stomach and even lower until she cried out her pleasure to the cold, still air.

Draco reached back up her body to kiss her again, her cold nose pressing against his and her breath hot against his ear as she whispered enticements and encouragements and pleas for _more_. He lifted one leg to wrap around his waist as he pushed forward and entered her slowly, tangling them together wholly and completely until they truly were one.

Draco doubted he had ever felt as whole as he did in that moment.


	3. Chapter 3

Hi, all. Warnings for this chapter include non-explicit sexual content, some torture, profanity and violence. After this chapter, there will be a short epilogue to follow, then we're done here. Leave a review at the end, pretty please?

* * *

><p><em><strong>February 14, 1998<strong>_

The next time Draco went to her, he brought with him a small box of incredibly silly Valentine's Day decorations. She had grinned at him when he showed her, and they spent the morning laughing together, forgetting the war and everything else as they strung pink paper hearts around the barn and lit little scented tea-light candles to dot around her small table. They never put any light near the windows on the chance that someone would see.

"This was absolutely unnecessary," Hermione told him, pragmatic as always, as she surveyed her new, somewhat gaudy surroundings. Privately, he agreed; pink was horrendous, but given the occasion, it seemed appropriate. She turned and faced him with a wide, happy smile and launched herself into his unsuspecting arms, kissing him soundly. "Thank you."

They spent the afternoon entwined in each other's limbs on her makeshift bed. Together they chased away the bitter cold with hot skin, scorching kisses and fiery touches that erupted and flared to bring them together again and again.

The evening they spent wrapped in and atop Hermione's sleeping bag, having whispered conversations about any inconsequential little thing that happened to pass their minds.

"Where did you get this one?"

Hermione giggled as his lips brushed against a scar near her ankle.

"Horse riding when I was six. The horse was temperamental, and she threw me. I got caught in the stirrup and ended up with a nasty cut. It needed sixteen stitches."

"Stitches?" he queried, looking up the long line of her body.

She waved her hand dismissively. "Muggle medicine," she clarified. "Doctors suture wounds back together with a sort of thread until it heals over, then they remove the stitches."

He shuddered at the thought and kissed the scar again, tracing the length of it with his tongue until she giggled again. He rather liked that he could reduce Hermione Granger to giggles. "That sounds barbaric."

"I very nearly gave myself stitches," she told him, gesturing lazily to her bandaged arm. "I had a needle and thread, and the first stitch nearly done, but the pain was blinding. I couldn't go through with it."

"You could have gone to the Muggle hospital," he pointed out, resting his head in the cradle of her ankle. It's not that far from the cathedral, only a half hour walk."

"I could have," she conceded, contemplative, "but it would have left me out in the open too long. I couldn't risk it, not when I could steal bandages from the little stores instead. I'm certain the little old lady who runs the shop is onto me by now, though." Her fingers brushed a scar on his abdomen, a little above and to the right of his belly button. "How did you get this one?"

"Flying accident."

She gasped in mock amazement. "You mean there was once a time where Draco Malfoy was anything less than competent on a broom?"

"I was four at the time," he told her as he hauled himself into an upright position. "I flew into a tree, managed to impale myself on a low hanging, and apparently very sharp branch."

"Ow." She winced, leaning forward to brush a kiss against the scar. "That must have hurt."

"Actually, it didn't. The healers thought it must be the shock of it all, but I never really felt a thing as it was happening." Draco reached over to trail a finger down the length of a scar that ran from Hermione's left shoulder and down through her chest to her right hip. "This one looks like it was painful."

"It felt like I was on fire," she whispered, her eyes trained on the high ceiling. "Fortunately, I passed out within seconds."

"This is the one my father was involved in, wasn't it? At the Department of Mysteries?"

She gave a nonchalant little shrug. "He was there, but he wasn't the one who gave this to me."

He pressed a kiss to where the scar crossed the centre of her chest. "Who was it?"

The sudden coldness in her tone surprised him when she answered, "Antonin Dolohov."

"Dolohov gave this to you?" He kissed the length of it, stopping at her shoulder where he rested his chin.

She hummed an affirmative. "I always knew I would get hurt helping Harry, but it was still surprising when it happened; to see the eyes of a person who obviously derived a great amount of joy from hurting children, I don't think it is a look I'd soon forget."

"Dolohov is a sadistic bastard," Draco agreed.

"More than that," Hermione said, her eyes taking on a glazed, distant look. "I've heard the things Dolohov has done to others, how he was part of what happened to the Longbottoms and countless others, and how he seemed to _love_ it so much, and from the things you've told me about what happens in your home… it's evil. I have no other word for it. The Death Eaters are evil."

"Potter gave me this," he cut into her diatribe, guiding her hand to a scar that ran the opposite direction of hers on his chest. "Your precious, Order-loving, can-do-no-wrong Potter gave me this scar. Does that make him evil too? That he attacked me in a fashion much the same as Dolohov attacked you?"

"Don't be absurd, Malfoy," Hermione snapped. "Harry didn't know what that curse was going to do to you, and he felt horrible afterwards. Believe me, he was punished accordingly, and has received enough castigation to last him a lifetime."

"So he ought to be forgiven because he was ignorant and stupid? You will forgive and bloody _castigate_ him for lashing out at me, but you will carry around a grudge against Dolohov for doing the same bloody thing?"

"There is a huge difference, Malfoy! Harry didn't knowingly hurt you –"

"– Potter turned his bloody wand on me with intent to harm! Who gives a toss whether he knew what the spell would do or not!"

"– But Dolohov knew exactly what he was doing when he hurt me!" She stopped and drew a deep breath. "Are you really defending Dolohov?"

"I want to rip his limbs from his body knowing now what he did to you," Draco said lowly, running his finger again down the length of the scar again. "But I think it is a little bit hypocritical of you to tell me that Potter should be defended for doing very nearly the exact same thing!"

"Harry isn't a Death Eater who acted maliciously!"

"No, he was a stupid boy in the Order who acted maliciously! Haven't you always been quick to champion the supposedly non-violent tendencies of the bloody Order? How is it when their banner man is found to be acting recklessly and not unlike a Death Eater?"

"The Order does not embrace violence, but we do not deny its existence," Hermione defended in a low whisper, "nor do we shy away from it when we need to. How can we when its effects are all around us?"

"Effects that your side contribute to almost daily," Draco snapped. "The Order is no more morally sound than the Death Eaters. You shroud your reasons for hurt and murder in thinly veiled proclamations of the betterment of the Wizarding world, when in truth you are no better than they are. There is a bloody Wizarding prison; why not use it? They are two sides _fighting in a fucking war_ for very different ideals, but both are drenched in blood for it."

"True," she conceded. "But your methods for punishing even your own are questionable at best for offenses that anyone else would brand as mild. The Order only uses violence as a last resort."

He felt a frisson of offense shoot through him at her words. "I would think that you might know me well enough by now not to include me in their number," he said coldly.

Her expression softened slightly. "I'm sorry. But you can't sit with me, like this, and tell me that the Order is morally corrupt. I won't stand for it."

"All I'm saying is that, despite how incredibly evil their methods and motivations are, the Death Eaters are at least up front about their methods and what they stand for; your Order is confusing at the best of times. The Death Eaters are not black, and the Order is not white. All that exists in this war is shades of grey."

"So what side are you for?" Hermione asked him primly, pulling the sleeping bag up to better cover herself from his wandering hands. "If you find the Order to be too hypocritical for your liking, and the Death Eaters too evil, then what are you for?"

He let out a deep sigh. "Do I have to be for anyone?" he countered as he began to drop kisses to the slope of her neck to distract her from their heavy discourse. "Why must I choose a side when I don't believe in either of them?"

"It's important to believe in something," she retorted with a breathy sigh as she began to relax again. "You can't tell me that you believe in His ideals anyway. You aren't that barbaric, surely."

"I don't, and I'm not – _you know I'm not _– but I don't believe the Order is doing things any better. For a group of people so bent on a peaceful cessation of this war, you don't have overly peaceful agendas."

"War and violence seem to be the only languages the Death Eaters understand. If we had tried words, to be non-confrontational, we would have been dead where we stood."

Draco paused in his exploration of the little dip in between Hermione's collarbones to look at her with a smirk. "Hermione Granger, as I live and breathe, are you arguing with me the merits of war?"

"I advocate war only when all other peaceful intervention has failed," she replied, unflinching and unapologetic. "In this case, it certainly did. There was nothing else we could do."

"You talk about Death Eaters as though they're like robots; trained killing machines that give no thought to their actions. Some are, granted, but I think your Order forgets the others, those who aren't there by choice, those who do in fact have a conscience and who hate what they are involved in and who they have become. Those who are _human_."

Hermione looked up at him, her eyes sad and dimmed. "It seems to me that to be human is to be capable of the most heinous of crimes."

**XXX**

_**March 1, 1998**_

The dining room was freezing cold when Draco and the other Death Eaters filed in the next morning. None of the house elves bothered lighting fires in the Manor anymore, and Draco supposed he couldn't blame them. Having the Dark Lord in his home quickly snuffed out any warmth, any positive emotion, and reduced the hot lick of the flames and the warm glow of the embers to a smoky, cold grey.

He took his seat down the end of the table; he and his father had been relegated further and further down the line in the past year, symbolic of their decline in the Dark Lord's eyes.

Draco kept his head down, eyes tracing the knots in the wood as he only half listened to the Dark Lord's newest lieutenants as they detailed their meagre progress in the effort to locate Harry Potter. There was an occasional scream as whatever the lieutenants were saying was deemed not good enough, worthy of a _Crucio_ or worse for its lack of usefulness. His eyes were drawn to his father's hands, twisting and twitching anxiously under the table.

"Draco?" came a terrifying, high-pitched whine from the other side of the table.

He looked up to find the bright red eyes of Voldemort himself boring into his.

"Yes, my Lord?" he answered quietly.

"Scabior says there are… rumours circling, Draco. Most interesting rumours, indeed, regarding Harry Potter's Mudblood."

Draco kept his face impassive and gave a slight tilt of his head. "I have heard them, my Lord."

"There are those who believe that she… is right under our feet, playing us all for fools as she skips right past us."

Again, he nodded. "I have heard."

"Do you believe that these rumours are correct? That there is a Mudblood in our midst, subsiding on little to no food, no wand and with no protection from her precious Potter… who can fool us all?"

There was a collective, careful chuckle from the contingent of Death Eaters around the table. Draco closed his eyes briefly, reinforcing his mental walls, and shook his head. "I don't believe so, my Lord. A Mudblood would all too soon slip up and give herself away. All we have to go on is unsubstantiated gossip."

"Gossip starts its life as fact. Fact that is twisted beyond recognition. Tell me, Draco; where do you think those facts came from?"

Draco felt the eyes of every Death Eater in the room trained solely on him.

"I can only assume there was a sighting," he began slowly. "Or, at least, a presumed sighting. The Mudblood does have… distinctive features that may have been mistaken as hers from a distance. Perhaps, someone only thought they saw her."

"Perhaps." Voldemort stared at him, his coal-red eyes intense, unblinking and absolutely terrifying. "Is that what you believe, Draco?"

Draco felt a bead of sweat form at his temple, falling down his cheek to his chin and down his neck. "I do," he stated, proud that his voice had not quavered. "If the Mudblood was somewhere in the area, she would have slipped up and drawn our attention. She would have been dealt with before now."

"And if she had drawn your attention?" Voldemort asked, his tone dangerous, inviting the lie. "Would you have… dealt with her?"

Draco swallowed. "I would, my Lord."

The Dark Lord snorted mirthlessly, and Draco swore he had never heard a more terrifying sound. "Do not lie to me, boy. You are weak, Draco, much like your pathetic father and useless mother. You wouldn't deal with the girl any more than you dealt with that old fool, Dumbledore."

"My Lord," his father cut in, his voice tired and lacking any of his former authority.

"Silence, Lucius." The Dark Lord waved his hand, and Lucius' chair slammed backwards into the wall. Draco quickly swiveled his eyes back to the table as his breath started falling in sharp, harsh pants, listening to the tinny, distant sounds of his father groaning in pain.

"Draco?"

Slowly, Draco raised his gaze. He felt the manic, crazed eyes of Bellatrix on him. She clutched Voldemort's gnarled left hand in her own, and her sadistic cackle echoed in his ears. The others sat with more stoic, yet still amused expressions, their gazes fixed firmly on him.

"_Crucio._"

The chair fell back and Draco's head slammed into the solid floor. He was only vaguely aware of the throbbing pain there, though, as the curse set his skin on fire.

How long Voldemort kept his wand trained on him, Draco couldn't tell. He writhed on the ground for immeasurable minutes, his body contorting into unnatural and otherwise impossible angles. He registered quite dimly the jeers of the other Death Eaters, particularly Bellatrix's violent, piercing shrieks about how weakness was abhorrent, and he was no nephew of hers. It was too difficult to fight, too hard to want anything at that moment other than the sheer relief that death would bring, so Draco waited, and hoped someone, somewhere would be merciful _and just fucking let it end_ for once in their pathetic lives.

But then he thought of Hermione, tortured with the same curse for even longer, and with far more ferocity than he was. She didn't let go, and she didn't give up. A brief flicker of her image passed through his mind, and Draco gritted his teeth, ready to hold on.

Out of nowhere, the curse was lifted. Draco wondered for one brief, distant moment if this was death he was experiencing, but the icy cold on his back, the uncomfortable hot on his front, the combining rivulets of sweat and tears falling down his face and the sheer, unimaginable pain quickly quelled that notion. Death couldn't possibly be _this_ uncomfortable.

"I want the girl." His voice, high, wheezing, and commanding as always, filled the air and shuddered agonizingly down his spine. "And I want her alive. Whoever brings her to me… shall be rewarded, with a place at my right hand."

He heard a clamour of noise and a flurry of yells as individual Death Eaters volunteered for the task. The noise began to fade as darkness closed in. He let out a breath and let consciousness go, closing his eyes and slipping away into the cool, welcoming black.

**XXX**

_**March 7, 1998**_

His limbs were still heavy as lead and twitching violently when he made the trek to the barn again nearly a week later. He had left the Manor as soon as he was able to stand again, unable to take another day of staring at his wall. He arrived at close to midday as opposed to his usual morning arrival; the journey took him twice the usual time, stopping every few hundred metres to take further sips of the ridiculously weak, possibly watered down anti-convulsion and pain potions his mother had smuggled to him. He had no further recollection of that night, only remembering a soft whisper of, "Swallow, Draco," and a gentle pressure to his throat, then the cool slide of the luminous blue potion as it was poured in a steady trickle into his mouth.

He braced his arms high above him as he leaned into the rusted walls, punching against the door three times in quick succession before he began to slide down.

"Draco!" Hermione gasped as she wrenched the door open. She quickly ducked down to his slouched body and slipped her hands under his arms, dragging him against her. "Where have you been? What happened?"

"_Crucio_," he told her, cringing in pain. She ran a cold hand over his burning forehead, and he let out a sigh of relief.

She sighed and pulled him back against her chest. She wrapped an arm across his shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "How long?"

"I have absolutely no idea. Could have been seconds, minutes. It felt like hours."

"You shouldn't have come," she chided him gently. "Not if you're still in so much pain."

He tried to chuckle but it came out as more of a pained cough. "Your hands are better than any pain relieving potion, Granger, I assure you."

He could just about hear her roll her eyes as she slid her hands down his shoulders and over his chest.

"Better?" she murmured before dropping a kiss behind his ear.

He groaned. "Much."

She hummed, her hands setting a maddeningly slow pace back and forth. "Good. Now you can help me get you over to the bed."

He let out a decidedly undignified whine. "But I'm comfortable right here, Granger!"

"Yes, well, I'm freezing sitting in the doorway." She stood, keeping her hands tucked under his arms to pull him up. "Now stand."

Begrudgingly, he clambered to his feet. His legs, however, refused to cooperate.

"Merlin, Malfoy. How did you even get here?" Hermione muttered as she looped an arm around his chest to support him.

"Sheer force of will," he replied with a cough. He allowed himself to be tugged along, offering what little assistance he could, until Hermione guided him gently down to her bed and settled in behind him.

Draco leaned back in her arms, closed his eyes and let out a satisfied sigh.

"You know," he began, casually, "if you wanted, you could –"

Hermione cut him off with a slap to his chest. "I most certainly could not," she declared, sounding almost indignant. "I remember what the _Crucio_ feels like, Draco. I've only just stopped twitching from it myself."

"I was going to say you could give me a massage, you dirty, dirty girl. But I'm sure whatever you had in mind would be just as good, if not better, if you'd prefer?"

She moved to slap him again, but he caught her wrist in his hand. "I am the wounded party here, Granger. No need to injure me further."

Hermione paused, the let out a disbelieving little laugh against his hair. "Did you ever guess this?" she asked. "That we would ever be like this for… for whatever length of time we're going to be like this?"

Draco stroked his fingers over the inside of her wrist, toying with the sensitive skin there. "Never."

"You hated me so much at Hogwarts."

"I never hated _you_, Granger. I hated what you were, everything you stood for, your infuriating brains, your friends, but never you."

Hermione hummed, contemplative. "Well, you certainly played the role well."

"Punching me tipped the balance, though." He rolled slightly and tilted his head up at her. "I was rather annoyed with you for a good while after that."

"No one can say that punch wasn't well-deserved," she defended. "Besides, from the way you were insulting Hagrid out in the open as you were, one might even think you were inviting the hit."

"That is a ridiculous assumption, Granger," he stated mildly, with a tiny smirk on his lips.

"But you knew we were there?"

"Of course I did." He yawned, and he felt himself start to drift off a little, his eyes heavy and his speech slurred. "I kind of liked you then."

Hermione's hands halted their gentle ministrations. "You what?"

"You heard me, Granger," he mumbled, his words bordering on incoherent as he felt the last waves of consciousness leave him before he was welcomed by sleep.

"Draco?" whispered a voice in his ear. "Draco? It's getting late. You have to get home soon."

"Wha…?" he mumbled, unwilling to move.

"Draco! For the love of God, it's five in the afternoon! You've been asleep for four hours!"

Draco leapt up, regretting it instantly when another overwhelming rush of pain consumed him. "Oh, fuck," he moaned.

"Here." Hermione pressed two tiny white discs and her water bottle into his hand. "Muggle painkillers," she explained. "They're quite helpful. I amplified their strength when I was on the run and still had my wand. Just swallow them with some water."

Without a second thought, Draco tipped the tablets into his mouth and chased them down with a large gulp of water. After nearly a minute, the pain that had assaulted him began to subside.

"Why didn't you give me those things before, Granger?"

"They were my last ones," she said sheepishly. "I had wanted to save them, but you seemed to need them more than I do."

"Thank you," he told her sincerely. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stretched his arms. "I'll be back when I can, Granger," he whispered, taking her hand and pulling him to her to kiss her lips gently, the intimate gesture completely natural and unthinking.

"Ooh! Take these with you, too."

She wrenched herself from his hold and flitted across the room to her beaded bag where she proceeded to produce an armful of what looked like tiny woolen tubes. Curious, he picked one up from her arms and held it out in front of him; it was a tiny knitted bodysuit.

"For the baby elves," she clarified when he didn't say anything.

He dropped the suit and looked at her as though she was insane. "You knitted bodysuits for baby elves?"

"What you said about house elf families got me thinking," she said, a pretty blush blooming on her cheeks. "You don't give them clothes otherwise they're freed. What do the babies wear, then? The parent elves don't ask for clothes, and –"

"They make them, Granger," he cut in, amusement tinging his tone. "We don't give them clothes, no, but we do give them the means to make their own."

"I saw what Dobby wore," she informed him. "Old pillow cases! I suppose you give them used tablecloths as well!"

"That isn't my fault!" Draco retorted defensively. "Father acquired Dobby long before I was born! What he wore was never up to me."

"Be that as it may," she said, transferring the little clothes to his unsuspecting arms, "now the babies have something warm to wear."

He chuckled to himself as he stowed the bodysuits in his coat pocket. "You're an odd bird, Granger. Merlin knows why I put up with you."

"Probably the same reason I put up with you."

He looked up to find her smiling at him, but the smile was strangely different to the one she normally bestowed on him. This one was softer, fonder and bordered on something more.

"Bye, Draco," she whispered as she pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I hope you feel better soon."

**XXX**

_**March 9, 1998**_

"Where do you go all day, Draco?"

Draco stopped in the doorway, turning in place to find his mother surveying him with curiosity. She had once been a strong, poised woman. She held her head high in society and in her home, always self-assured in the knowledge of who she was and where she had come from, but the past year had steadily beaten that confidence out of her. No longer in control of her own home, her family falling further and further from grace, his mother had gradual become a hollow, beaten out shell of her former self. It was rare to hear her voice within the cavernous walls of the Manor, and rarer still to see her venture from her rooms.

"Into town, mostly," he answered after a long moment. "Sometimes I walk into the woods, follow the Avon, just to see how far away I can get from here."

His mother nodded, though he wasn't convinced she believed him.

"I can hardly blame you for that," she whispered as she moved to stand at an open window to stare with wistful longing over the gardens. "I envy you your freedom, Draco."

Draco snorted. "Freedom, Mother? I can walk as far as I like, but there is no freedom, not while this Mark is on my arm."

"You are young, Draco, and this war will not last forever," she stated in her low, soft tone.

"Your heart is not in this," she went on, "something your father is only just now realising, as his isn't either. You want no more of this than I do; in that, you have the freedom to make your own choices, the freedom to take something more for yourself."

"How?" Draco asked, hating the desperation and the urgency in his voice. "There is no end in sight. I can't think beyond the day, and I certainly cannot picture a life of normalcy beyond this war, and not just because of our affiliations."

"You have already begun to cultivate that life of normalcy, darling, whether you realise it or not." She crossed the room to take him in her arms. The gesture was both strangely foreign – his mother had never been one for displays of affection, even in private – and oddly comforting. "Be careful with Miss Granger, Draco," his mother whispered in his ear. "For both your sakes."

Draco stiffened and pulled away, looking at his mother with wide, unblinking eyes. She gave him a secretive little smile and moved to brush his fringe from his eyes, just as she had when he was a child.

"A mother knows," she told him, as warmly as a woman like Narcissa Malfoy could manage, as she pressed a finger to his lips when he opened his mouth to respond. "I may not know her, but she has given you a reason to live, to hope, to smile. For that, she has my everlasting gratitude."

"What do I do?"

She smiled. "Do you love her, Draco?"

Draco froze. Was he in love with Hermione Granger? He knew his heart raced wildly when he went to meet her, slowing down to the most incredibly peaceful sort of calm when he was finally holding her again. She was the first thought that invaded his mind upon waking, the last to touch him before he went to sleep and the one that occupied the majority in between. The idea of her being hurt filled him with a sickening sense of dread and anger along with the oddest desire to protect her. But to be in love with her after nearly two months of really, truly knowing her? The answer must have been written all over him, as his mother reached a hand to stroke his cheek before settling on his shoulder.

"She can't stay here. You know she can't. She will be found, and she will be killed, as will you if you are found to be harbouring her."

"But what can I do? My wand is gone, she doesn't have one of her own, and the one I do use barely works for me."

"The girl is smart, and will listen to reason, I'm sure. Warn her of the danger she is in."

He laughed, humourless and hollow. "You want me to convince Hermione Granger of something? Mother, I'd have better luck asking a tree to lift its roots and plant itself elsewhere."

"You must, Draco," his mother urged. "For her to remain here now puts her in the gravest of danger."

"She's in danger either way, Mother!"

"A Death Eater is not going to take the time to slowly draw out her death and torture her in the middle of a warzone, Draco," she snapped, sounding as close to her normal self as she had in months. "But they will if they find her here, and for all your efforts and all your desires, you will not be able to keep her safe!"

"I know!" he bellowed, sighing when his mother raised a perfectly arched brow at his volume. "I know," he repeated, calmer. "I just… I don't know how."

His mother softened. "How are you progressing with the Cypress wand?"

"I… I haven't, really," he answered, puzzled. "Why?"

She sighed and shook her head, the smile on her face both impatient and loving – a combination only a mother could manage. "Because, darling," she spoke as she drew her own wand from her robes, "if you had magic at your disposal, you would be able to better help her. Just because the wand has not taken to you, it does not mean that it won't learn."

Draco carefully took the Cypress wand from his coat and held it firmly between his fingers. There was only the barest hint of power going through him at the touch, nothing like what he had experienced with his Hawthorn wand, but it was encouraging enough.

"Help me, Mother."

"Of course, my Dragonet."

**XXX**

_**March 10, 1998**_

Draco sprinted the distance between his Manor home and the rusted barn on the edge of the town. A journey that took him nearly an hour to walk this time took only twenty minutes. His trousers were marred by grass stains over his knees from where he had tripped and fallen, and the palms of his hands were stained green from where he had pushed himself back up to continue on. He fell into a stream, landed in a puddle of thick, clay-like mud, and by the time he reached the barn and threw open the door without even bothering to knock, twigs in his hair and dirt fucking _everywhere_, he knew he must have looked as though he had been dragged kicking and screaming through a swamp.

"Draco!" Hermione leapt from her sleeping bag when he barreled through the door. She looked him up and down with wide, surveying eyes. "What on earth happened to you?"

"You need to leave." He grabbed her beaded bag from the ground next to her and forcibly shoved her belongings in there. "Gather your things and get out of here, Granger. Now. Before it's too late."

"What? Why?" She tore the bag from his hands and flung it to the other side of the room where it landed with a muffled thump. She took his muddied face in her hands and held him still. "What's wrong, Draco?"

"He knows." He pulled at his hair and tore himself away from her hold, pacing the length of the barn. "Well, He doesn't _know_, but He's suspicious, and He's looking for you."

"What?" Hermione breathed, paling dramatically. "He knows? How?" There was a suspicious flash in her eyes. "Did you –"

He stopped in front of her and seized her by her shoulders. "Don't be fucking stupid, Granger," he growled. "Of course I didn't say anything. He has spies everywhere; you must have been sighted in town one day."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know you wouldn't have… I just…"

"I know," he said, dragging a hand down his face. "I know."

"So what do I do now?" She looked utterly lost, and it made his chest hurt to see. "Do I hide? Do I run?"

"You run," Draco said firmly, going back to his task of packing her bag. "You run, and you run far."

"I can't…" She choked down a sob. "I can't go now! What about you?"

"Forget me," he growled. "I'm nothing in this, Granger, but you… Potter can't do a damn thing without you."

"You are _not_ nothing!" she countered fiercely. "You've kept me alive, Malfoy, and gave me hope when I had none. You. Are. Not. Nothing!"

She punctuated each word with a kiss to his lips. As she moved to pull away, he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tightly to him, kissing her with every ounce of pent up desperation he could muster, and she returned it in full.

"I don't know if I'll be able to come back," he panted against her lips. "They'll be watching me – they might be already – and without magic, they will find you."

"Where will I go?"

"Where ever you want to go, Granger. Go find Potter, go home. Fuck, go to Russia and breed a flock of sodding racing pigeons for all I care. Just don't stay here."

"Then how do you propose I leave?" she challenged, crossing her arms defiantly over her chest. "If I'm in as much danger as you say you are, surely trying to leave would only lead to my death even faster."

He pulled out the Cypress wand and twirled it between his fingers. "I've been… practicing with this."

"Does it cooperate with you now?" Hermione asked, staring at it with wide eyes.

"For the most part. I've been practicing glamour charms, and they have worked so far, though with mixed results. Do you trust me?"

"What do you intend to do with it?" she questioned, eyeing it warily.

"Disguise you. Death Eaters are looking for you, Granger! They know what you look like. If I glamour you, you at least have a chance."

She swallowed audibly and a lone tear ran down her cheek. "Then yes. I trust you."

**XXX**

_**March 20, 1998**_

It might have been sadistic, a torture to himself, but Draco couldn't help but return to the barn that had almost become like a second home to him. Hermione had left the week before, he hadn't seen or heard from her and, _Merlin help him_, he'd felt so bloody lost since.

He took one step through the door and immediately froze in place; droplets of blood were scattered across the barn floor. Draco tried not to let himself panic; those droplets could have come from her arm while she was changing her bandages, or perhaps she had a bloody nose. He remembered her once telling him she often got those when it was particularly cold. The sight of a gleaming, bloodied blade caught his eye. It had skidded across the floor, leaving a streaked, messy trail from where it had landed to where it had stopped. He didn't allow himself to panic, though; Granger would have left something to throw anyone who happened to find their barn off her trail.

Heavy footsteps and an irritated growl sounded from somewhere behind him. Draco whipped out his wand and pointed it in the face of his supposed assailant.

"The little Malfoy brat," Dolohov snarled, his yellowed teeth bared. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Draco quickly stowed his wand away and schooled his expression to one of disgust. He cast a fleeting glance around the room and let out a growl. "I heard Potter's Mudblood was here." He kicked over the makeshift table and watched as the oranges and pears he'd brought her only days before she had left bruised from the impact and scattered across the dusty floor. "But it looks like someone else got to her first."

Dolohov snorted, his toe nudging the bloodied knife and sending it skidding across the floor. "Same as your cock-up father, always looking to get in first, weasel his way back into His good graces, as if He can't see right through you."

Draco clenched his jaw to keep from saying anything else as he watched Dolohov poke around the remnants of the barn. He had to forcibly stop himself from running the other, far larger man through the wall for running his filthy hands over the items Hermione left behind.

"Looks like they did a good job on her, whoever they were. Definitely a struggle here," Dolohov commented, with the same, disinterested air one might employ to talk about the weather. Draco felt the bile within him rise to his throat. "The Dark Lord's not gonna be happy, though. He seemed pretty set on doing it himself. Would have drawn Potter right out, could have ended it all tonight."

Draco nodded mutely, his eyes still darting about the small space for something, anything that might indicate where Granger would have gone. But still, relief flooded his system; Dolohov obviously didn't have her, and if someone else had captured her then he doubted he would ever hear the end of it, so she must have escaped safely. She must have found a way out. He wondered if there was a way he could get in contact with Potter on the off chance Hermione had found a way back to him, but he doubted that he'd be met with an overly warm reception, regardless of his motivations.

"Yeah," he responded eventually. "Tonight."

Dolohov kicked over the table and the stool, and let out a whoop as he bent over to retrieve something from the ground. "She can't have gone far. No wand and no friends, she'd be on foot; might still be able to catch her if we send the Snatchers out now." He jumped over to Draco, a sick smile spread over his filthy features and a singlet Draco recognised as Hermione's grasped in his fist. "What do you think, brat? Reckon if Greyback gets a whiff of this he could track her?"

Draco couldn't help himself. "You are one sick fuck," he growled before pulling back his fist and launching it with everything he had on Dolohov's nose. There was a sickening crack and an animalistic yelp of pain as Dolohov was sent reeling backwards and to the floor where blood began to flow from the wound like a river. But it wasn't enough. Again and again, Draco landed kicks to anywhere that was exposed: the ribs, the stomach, the back, the arms, the legs before finally ending with a particularly aggressive blow between the legs.

Draco kneeled down and leaned over to the swollen, bloodied, completely unrecognisable face of Antonin Dolohov. "This one is mine," Draco hissed. "_Do you understand_? You will not speak to him of this, of anything that has happened today."

Dolohov gave a tiny nod, more like a twitch than anything else, before he passed out. Draco couldn't bring himself to care if he had a concussion or not, and stepped over the prone body and headed for the door.

He turned back and glanced one more time over the barn that had almost been like a home before continuing on his way. Whatever happened to her, at least she was safe.

Now all they had to do was survive the rest of it.


	4. Chapter 4

_Six months later_

The war ended with a bang on the second of May. Casualties had piled up high on both sides, not the least of which included the supposedly immortal Dark Lord himself. There weren't enough words in the world to describe the relief that had flooded though him on witnessing Voldemort fall to Harry Potter's wand. Perhaps Scarhead had been good for something, after all.

The damages from the war were widespread: Diagon Alley was in ruins, Hogsmeade had been decimated, and Hogwarts itself was on the verge of crumbling entirely. Most everything would need to be torn back down to its foundations and be rebuilt to be viable once more, but even with magic there was no telling how long that would take.

The volunteer effort was immense. Help came from far and wide, from international Wizarding communities, to the Squibs that dotted the nation. It humbled Draco in a way, to witness the camaraderie in the fallout of what could only be described as a horrible, terrifying tragedy.

He hadn't seen Granger since she had left nearly six months ago. He had thought that maybe she would fight, making the contribution she had so desperately wanted to while she was trapped inside that barn, but there had been no sight of her during the Battle of Hogwarts; no sideways catch of her curls, no brief, impassioned glimpse at her intoxicating whiskey-coloured eyes, no furious cry of a curse as she pushed her way through the fight to stand alongside her friends, ready to defend them and everything she believed in to the death.

He had thought too that she might have come to his trial back in June, that he might have spied her watching from somewhere in the stands. Again, there had been no sign of her. His advocate had instead come from a most unlikely source in Harry Potter himself. Potter had shot him the queerest looks as he defended him in front of the Wizengamot, as though he was being forced to swallow lemons by speaking the words out loud. Draco had nearly laughed at the impassioned defense that held no passion at all before he realised that it was highly unlikely that Potter was defending him because he genuinely believed Draco to be innocent. Far more likely was the notion that he was doing it as a favour.

Potter's defense had been what had saved him in the end; one year without the use of his (near useless) wand and mandated community service, helping with the cleaning and rebuilding. All in all, Draco felt he got off quite lightly, especially when he considered his father's ten-year Azkaban sentence and his mother's eighteen months of house arrest.

Today saw him on a rotation at Hogwarts. The day before he had been helping Florean Fortesque restore his Diagon Alley shop. Before that, he had been clearing the rubble that had once been Hogsmeade Station, before that he had been part of a line of volunteers that were rebuilding by hand a Muggle street that had been decimated by a random Death Eater attack.

"Mister Malfoy," McGonagall greeted him wearily as he met her at the top of the steps that once led to the majestic doors which opened into the Great Hall. She consulted a piece of parchment and pursed her lips in consideration. "You'll be… on the first floor, by the second-year Defense classroom."

"Of course, Professor," he responded dutifully before turning to leave.

"And, Draco?" she called after him.

He paused and turned back. "Yes, Professor?"

"Promise me that you'll at least… _try_ to get along with them?"

"With whom?" he asked, puzzled.

"You aren't the only one volunteering your efforts, Mister Malfoy," McGonagall informed him, looking down at him over her glasses. "And many here fought for the Order."

"And that should matter now because…?"

"They may not be best receptive to you in their midst."

"Just because I wasn't aligned with your Order, it does not mean I fought for Voldemort," he reminded her, a little more tersely than he intended.

"Of course not," McGonagall answered cagily. "And it was not your incitement that I had anticipated in any case." She turned on her heel and began in a direction towards the dungeons. "Good luck, Mister Malfoy, and keep out of mischief!"

Draco wanted to laugh at the stupidity of the implication. Any 'mischief' would earn him a one-way ticket to Azkaban for a cell adjoining his father's.

The distance to the second-year defense classroom was nothing now that the walls separating the corridors had been blown away. Draco allowed himself a silent moment of mourning for the building that had served as his home for so long.

He stopped suddenly at a corner at the sound of painfully familiar voices on the other side.

"Blimey, Harry! Why are you doing it like _that_?"

"I'm not entirely sure. I think this is one of those things I have to do by hand."

"Like Dobby's grave?'

"Yeah. I suppose so."

Draco sneered to himself. _Potter and Weasley. _He braced himself against the battered wall and listened in.

"Hey, didn't 'Mione say she was coming today?"

'Mione? Oh, Merlin, what a vile butchering of a perfectly good name.

"I'm not sure. She said she would, but I think your mum might have forcibly tied her down."

They both chuckled, and Draco strained to hear the rest of the conversation as they moved further down the length of the wall.

"You'd think, in her condition, she might bloody well sit still for once. It's not as though they're short of volunteers here."

Condition? Was she ill? Draco crept along the wall and peeked out over the corner, finding both Potter and Weasley levitating small piles of rubble into another, larger pile.

"It's Hermione, Ron," Potter was saying, "she's incapable of sitting still. And you know her; if there's a campaign that need spearheading, she'll do it."

"Even after the healers told her she shouldn't be moving around too much?"

"Ron, when have you ever known Hermione to listen to a person when they tell her to do something? Besides, I'm sure she knows her limits by now – she wouldn't push herself, not with her baby."

Draco choked on his breath of air. _Baby_?

"Hermione, bloody pregnant," Weasley muttered. "I swear, when I get my hands on –"

"Draco?"

Draco immediately stilled and closed his eyes, letting out a breath at the low, melodic voice. He was almost afraid to turn around. If he did, nothing would ever be the same again. Then, he supposed, a wry smirk on his lips, in those two months they had spent together, she had all but ruined him. Nothing had been the same since.

He turned slowly to find her smiling shyly up at him, her face slightly rounder than what he remembered, but still beautiful, glowing and completely, utterly happy. His eyes trailed down to where her hands were wrapped protectively around a swollen belly. His eyes widened, his world narrowed and, completely against his will, he stuttered out the only thing that came to mind:

"You got fat, Granger."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: <strong>And that's the end of that! A few things:

1: I know this will be a contentious point, but I'm not sure I want to write a sequel to this. I like ambiguity and open ends in my stories, as those who have ready my previous fest pieces can attest to. I'd prefer you to make up your own mind for where Hermione and Draco go from here **HOWEVER** this is not to say that I won't write something else down the line to round this out and make it more definite. If I did, it wouldn't be as long as this (probably...) and it wouldn't be until some time next year.

2: Things that have been brought up in reviews, both here and in the fest: Firstly, if anyone was concerned, we can safely assume Draco beat the life out of Dolohov in the previous chapter. Secondly: why didn't Draco bring crap to help Hermione, namely medicine? He wasn't able to. It was stated earlier that the potions his mother got him were stolen. If it was a battle for her to get them with a wand, Draco had no hope. And thirdly, those familiar with the original couple know that Elphaba did eventually turn out to be the Wicked Witch of the West we know from 'The Wizard of Oz', and does in fact die. Fiyero, Elphaba's secret lover in the book, also died. I didn't want to follow the prompts from that couple quite so closely, hence why everyone is still alive now. Fans of the book will recognise the scene in the first part in the church as mirroring the book, as does the secret relationship and the baby at the end (though this was an odd point in the books).

3: Of all my stories so far, I'm particularly proud of this one. I loved every minute of writing it, and I hope you've enjoyed reading it. Please leave a review and let me know your thoughts, and I'll see you again shortly with a couple of one-shots I wrote for HP_Drizzle. Til then :)


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